The present invention relates to an electronic transaction method and system for electronically making a commercial transaction through a communication network, and particularly to an electronic transaction method and system capable of flexible electronic transaction by changing an electronic transaction process at each seller or financial institution or each element concerned with settlement such as merchandise to sell and an amount of money or at each combination thereof.
A remarkable electronic transaction system through a network is an electronic transaction system utilizing the Internet. This electronic transaction system, unlike the ones using the personal computer communications and CATV, has the advantage of being able to be used by everyone if connected to the Internet. In order to have electronic dealings through the Internet, it is necessary to provide a secure communications procedure capable of maintaining the secret of data in communication and a certifying procedure for confirming a person or company with which one has dealings.
Various different electronic transaction procedures have been developed for these necessaries. There are STT (secure transaction technology; executed by Microsoft and VISA), SEPP (secure electronic payment protocol; used by MasterCard, IBM, Netscape, CyberCash, and GTE Corp) and SET which are used for settlement of credits. These satisfy the above requirements by defining different data items in communication, coding/decoding systems, digital signature/certification procedure, and data checking method. Thus, the user can make secure electronic transaction on the Internet by executing applications software having these procedures utilized.
In addition, these electronic transaction procedures are being tried to be unified. One of the combined versions is Universal Payment Protocol (CyberCash). In this combined version, data contents are expressed in MIME form, and communication data items are automatically sent on an application of the described procedure. The Universal Payment Protocol is written in, for example, INTERNET-DRAFT, xe2x80x9cUniversal Payment Preamblexe2x80x9d, Nov. 6, 1995, pp. 2-15.
However, in order to use an application having STT, SEPP or SET incorporated, it is necessary to previously install it in the terminals for an electronic transaction. Thus, both seller and buyer must have the same application in order to make electronic transaction.
Also, since this application is now used only for the settlement of credits, transfer of money to a bank and settlement of electronic money will be required to use an application that has another electronic transaction procedure incorporated. In other words, the electronic transaction user needs various kinds of application soft for the respective electronic transaction procedures, which increase the capacity of the memory in the user""s terminal.
Moreover, when there is a need to change the electronic transaction procedure, coding/decoding system, digital signature/certification procedure or data checking method in order to improve the service to the users, a new application after the change must be again distributed to the users. Therefore, it is not possible to flexibly and swiftly overcome the difficulties in the change of electronic transaction procedures.
Meanwhile, the Universal Payment Protocol can unify data communications, but still needs various different applications because received data are treated by each application for electronic transaction. This results in the increase of the capacity of the memory in the terminal of the electronic transaction user as described above.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide an electronic transaction method and system capable of solving the problems with the prior art to thereby decrease the number of applications necessary for an electronic deal, and to flexibly and swiftly cope with the alteration of the electronic transaction procedure without limitation to participants.
According to the present invention, there is provided an electronic transaction method for making an electronic deal by basically using an offer-side client system to be used by a seller of a commodity, a purchase-side client system to be used by a buyer of the commodity, a settlement-side client system for settlement of the purchase of the commodity, and a server system for supporting electronic transaction processes of the commodity which are connected through a communication network, and by executing electronic transaction processes for the settlement of the commodity to be purchased, according to a certain electronic transaction procedure among the purchase-side client system, the offer-side client system and the settlement-side client system when the purchase-side client requests the offer-side client to sell the commodity, the method including the steps of storing in the server system a plurality of electronic transaction procedures corresponding to elements or combinations of elements including means of payment settlement of the commodity, amount of deal, contents of the commodity and financial institutions participating in the payment settlement, selecting one of the electronic transaction procedures corresponding to a combination of elements including the means of payment settlement of the commodity in the server system when the purchase-side client requests the offer-side client to sell the commodity, and distributing the electronic transaction procedure through the communication network to the offer-side client system, the purchase-side client system and the settlement-side client system, and executing the electronic transaction processes according to the distributed electronic transaction procedure in the offer-side client system, the purchase-side client system and the settlement-side client system to thereby achieve the settlement of the purchased commodity, or the electronic deal.
Moreover, according to the invention, there is provided an electronic transaction system having: a server system which includes storage means having stored therein a plurality of electronic transaction procedures corresponding to elements or combinations of elements including means of payment settlement of the commodity, amount of deal, contents of the commodity and financial institutions participating in the payment settlement, procedure selecting means for selecting one electronic transaction procedure corresponding to the elements including the means of payment settlement of the commodity in accordance with the purchase request from the purchase-side client system, and transmitting means for transmitting the selected electronic transaction procedure through the communication network to the offer-side client system, the purchase-side client system and the settlement-side client system; and an offer-side client system, purchase-side client system and settlement-side client system each of which includes processing means for executing electronic transaction processes according to the electronic transaction procedure distributed from the server system.
In this case, the electronic transaction procedure is distributed by the following ways:
(1) It is distributed to each client system at a time
(2) It is transferred together with a message of commodity information and so on to a participant client system in the order of participants in an electronic deal.
(3) A current participant client system requests the server system to send a part of the electronic transaction procedure necessary at the next stage, and the part of the electronic transaction procedure distributed from the server in accordance with this request is transferred together with a message to the next participant.
(4) A current participant client system requests the server system to send a part of the electronic transaction procedure necessary at the present stage, and the sever distributes it to the client system in response to this request.
Here, the commodity to be treated in the electronic deal is not limited to concrete objects, but may include intangible assets such as pay guide information and pay legal advice.